


battle of alberta

by pixieism



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:49:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixieism/pseuds/pixieism
Summary: It's all a matter of who loses the most.
Relationships: Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	battle of alberta

**February 2, 2020**

The air’s hot. So sticky-thick with the heat of crammed bodies that Leon can taste it when he swallows. Thinks it’s made even hotter by the anger throbbing in the room, the quick-shoot glares and scowled-mutterings that follow him around the packed space. Leon directs a lazy smile at a pair of guys in baseball caps leaning against the bar, smiles even harder when their fingers tighten on their glasses and faces go thunder-dark. 

He doesn’t normally do this, go out after games in enemy territory. The clubbing scene in Calgary leaves much to be desired, plus he isn’t like Nursey, who likes to lose himself in the pulsing beat of too-loud music win or lose. Isn’t like Connor, who usually spends the night nursing a single beer in the booth, tearing his napkin into neat little pieces but growing quiet, warm smiles at the antics of whatever gaggle of drunken teammates stop by for a break from dancing. Doesn’t get off on it like Kass does, every heated look aimed his way turning his steps into a strut. Or at least he didn’t before. 

But tonight’s different. 

He’s never been one to buy into sports writers’ clumsy attempts at battle metaphors. They make him cringe a bit because it’s _hockey_. And that’s all it needs to be, and just because Leon doesn’t have an answer to what goes through his head when he makes last-second, game-winning goals beyond “ _shoot puck and score”_ doesn’t mean it’s not important. 

From the slightly-crushed looks on beat reporters’ faces over the years, he’s gathered they don’t feel the same. So he tries, sometimes, to give them vague statements they can utilize to craft a narrative the way they so clearly desire to do. But reality is pretty simple—Leon shoots because he wants goals. He wants goals because goals win games. And that’s what it boils down to: he wants to win. There’s no _War and Peace-_ level through line. 

But tonight was different. 

He’s _proud_ of the ache in his back, the bruise he can feel blooming on his upper thigh under itchy denim. Proud of the glares, proud enough that he’s probably strutting just like Kass, can feel himself being aware of who’s watching when he tips his throat back to take a long drink. Tonight was the first time he didn’t roll his eyes a little at the Sporstnet guys on his hotel TV nattering on about the “Battle of Alberta” but paused instead. Felt the words slot into place because they were true. It _was_ a battle.

And they fucking won it.

There’s a “ _Drink up, Smithy!_ ” being roared out as Leon makes his way back to the booth, drink sliding across the table and sloshing out onto the surface as a broad, heavy hand lands on the back of Smithy’s head and ruffles his hair aggressively. 

"Hey, careful with the wounded,” Kass smirks out and everyone laughs, counterproductively gifting Smithy more slaps on the back and punches in the upper arm as he ducks his head down, because he really is a brave son-of-a-bitch, taking on Talbs—Talbot. Taking on Talbot like that. 

Smithy’s face is flushed when he raises it, and by the way his lids are drooping, it’s not the first drink he’s been given that night. By the time he fists the glass and raises it in the air, most of the drink is on the table. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is his bright eyes and bright grin and slurred out “ _Fuck the Flames!”_

“ _Fuck the Flames!”_ Leon booms back, voice scraping with how loud it is. Louder than he’s ever let it get, loud because his boys are loud along with him, and his skin prickles under the weight of the stormy gazes that just snapped their way. 

The night hazes over in a way Leon doesn’t usually let it, a cycle of thick air, warm bodies, pounding bass to shocking bursts of laughter, friendly-arms slung around shoulders, a perpetual stream of increasingly pitiful chirps as the collective alcohol content in their bloodstream rises.

“Gotta piss,” Leon says off-handedly at some point, stumbling up and scrubbing a hand over his face before squeezing out of the booth. There’s a fraction of a moment where he’s surprised he let the thought manifest into spoken words—but it vanishes fast, and when his legs lead him towards the door to the back alley after he gets out of the bathroom, he doesn’t question it. 

Lets his arms push the door open and gives into the urge to spin around and press his cheek against the cold brick of the wall, the shivers chattering his teeth and goose pimpled skin somehow feeling completely separate from the warmth coursing underneath. Like there’s two parts of his body—the hot and the cold, his mind observing both from above and letting him feel both and neither at the same time. 

A small sound comes from his right, and Leon blinks, eyelashes grazing against the brick, every piece of him snapping back together in the space of a second. He spins around, fast breath puffing white clouds in the cold and _Jesus_ it’s cold and stops, eyes going wide. 

Because Matthew Tkachuk is looking straight back at him, spine frozen tight and strange like he was leaning on the wall and decided to stand up, only to change his mind last second. His fingers are wrapped around the neck of his bottle, thumb resting on the rim. The kind of grip you use when you’re swinging one back to get it down as fast as possible. Under the harsh lamp-light, his lips are wet, Leon thinks. 

A shudder-shake goes through Tkachuk and he straightens up, shoulders square. Turns his head away and brings his bottle up to his lips for a deep swig, and Leon can see the bruises marring his knuckles. 

“Shouldn’t you be at home with your tail between your legs?” It slips out of Leon’s mouth, loud in the cold night air. He doesn’t remember thinking about saying it before it came out, but now that he’s heard the words he can’t help but wish they came out smoother, maybe even smug—which isn’t something he’d ever admit to himself sober. 

Instead they come out rough, scratchy. Uneven enough that he can feel heat gather at the tops of his cheeks and flush down behind his neck.

It doesn’t help that Tkachuk barely reacts, save for a little hum and a pause of his bottle in the air en-route to his mouth. He doesn’t even turn his head when he lilts out a “Should I?” And it _does_ come out smooth, smug—a sliver of amusement worming its way into the mix and Leon feels his insides go blue to red to black and it’s actually unbelievable. _Unbelievable_ that Tkachuk just got his ass-handed to him both figuratively and metaphorically and can stand there with his bruised knuckles and his stupid hair and sound like that. Like he’s the winner. Like Leon’s the—

“I would be, if I were you,” Leon says back, trying for cool, even. Hoping to wrangle his own version of cutting amusement and inject it into the mix, but all that comes out is hard, angry, _bothered._ Jesus, he sounds like a pathetic schoolyard bully, and Tkachuk thinks so too, if the smirk curling onto his face is any indication—shoulders going loose, easy as Leon feels himself growing tighter and tighter with each passing second. 

Tkachuk takes his time. Lets out a light laugh with a hint of a snort at the end, a little pause like he’s sharing an inside joke with himself, and it raises Leon’s hackles. “Trust me, I know,” Tkachuk says, ‘ _me’_ muffled by the bottle coming up to his lips. He keeps his head back long enough for Leon to see how pale his throat is and then comes back down, little “ _ahh”_ pushing out of his mouth as he wipes his wet lips with the back of his hand. He slants his eyes at Leon to show how they glint, smirk turning mean and turning his head back once again as he utters out “Pussy.” 

Leon’s feet carry him forward, stumbles him a few feet away from Tkachuk. “What did you just call me?” And it’s maybe the most even his voice has come out all night, because he’s too shocked to be upset. 

Tkachuk turns his head slowly, slow enough that it must take effort. This close, Leon can see the bags under his eyes when he looks straight at him, smiles, and says “Pu,” and then a pause. “Ssy,” he finishes, and Leon goes _red-red-red._

“I’ll mess you up,” Leon bites out, edging closer still, not sure if the belligerent anger clenching up his fists is in response to Tkachuk’s inelegant but irritatingly effective brand of obnoxiousness or his own inability to defend against it. Leon can’t even remember the last time he’s heard the word _“pussy”_ come out of someone’s mouth and it not be excruciatingly embarrassing for the guy who said it, and he’s a professional hockey player for Christ’s sake. 

Tkachuk’s whole image is built on being a pest, a rat, to bother you with his body and his stick but his words, too. He should be able to do a lot better than _“pussy.”_ But when Tkachuk shrugs another easy shoulder, Leon’s struck by the thought that Tkachuk is very, very good at his job. So good that he probably took one look at him and decided that _"pussy"_ would do the job just fine.

It makes something ugly and sick coil in his gut.

“I’m not too worried about it,” Tkachuk says, letting his now-empty bottle slip from his fingers and crack against the pavement. He turns his head just in time to catch Leon’s flinch. He licks his lips, brows furrowing. “What was it you said?” Takes a second to dart his eyes like he’s searching his brain. “You’d get off the ice?” His face smooths out to a flat slate. “Not exactly good at following through on your threats, are you?” 

Leon blinks, and then suddenly he has Tkachuk up against the wall, the shock he feels at his arms gripping Tkachuk’s biceps flex under his skin reflected in Tkachuk’s wide eyes. Leon isn’t—Leon doesn’t—He’s not some hothead punk, flipping out on every person that levels a shitty chirp at him. He can’t _afford_ to be that guy. 

“Come on,” Tkachuk says softly, small smile playing at his lips, like Leon shoving him against a wall only proved his point. “Do it. Show me a you’re a man of your word.” His fingers tighten around Tkachuks’s arms, and it finally hits Leon, why Tkachuk is smiling. 

Leon closes his eyes, takes a short breath, and releases his grip, lets his hands fall dully at his own sides. Steps back, because he’s not that guy, no matter how much alcohol he has loosening his limbs. He knows it, and—

So does Tkachuk. 

When Leon opens his eyes back up, Tkachuk is already staring at him. “Pussy,” he says a final time, like it’s a fact. Boring as _the sky is blue._

_The sky is blue. Water is wet._

_Leon Draisaitl is a pussy._

Tkachuk got bodied by Kass a few nights ago, got bodied by Bear tonight. He has bruises on his knuckles and tragic hair and is drinking alone in the back alley of a bar on a Saturday night in the cold. He lost 8-3. 

8-3. 

8 to fucking 3. 

Still, it’s Leon who breaks the eye contact, turns around. Leon who walks back to the door to the bar with fists shaking against his sides. Leon who won 8-3, Leon who got four points that night, Leon who—some way, somehow—feels like he's the one who really lost.

Fucking pest. Tkachuk really is good at his job. 

Too good. 

**Author's Note:**

> My first Mattdrai! Current plan is to do a SKAM-type thing where I write and upload scenes after every BOA game this season, since they are playing tonsss of games against each other! Any and all comments are so very appreciated! Thank you for reading! 🥰


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